Dreams not spoiled by roaches (PoemTalk #93)

Helen Adam, 'Cheerless Junkie's Song'

Corina Copp, Laura Sims, and Richard Deming joined Al Filreis in the Wexler Studio of the Kelly Writers House to talk about one of Helen Adam’s poem-songs, “Cheerless Junkie’s Song.” PennSound’s Helen Adam page consists (so far) of three items. First, a full recording of the 1977 performance (aired on WBAI radio) of the 1963 lyric play called San Francisco’s Burning. Second, a recording of Adam being interviewed by Susan Howe and Charles Ruas on Pacifica Radio in the late 1970s. And, third, our poem, “Cheerless Junkie’s Song”: Adam performed the piece on film, in Ron Mann’s documentary Poetry in Motion (1981).

The group first tackled the major question of whether and how the ballad form can be integral to Beat poetry and poetics — and/or to politically and aesthetically resistant poetry generally. The answer, we concluded, was certainly yes, but in a manner as eccentric and counter-intuitive as Helen Adam herself.

Then we pondered this junkie’s song. The junkie seems to track the well-trodden course influenced by Manifest Destiny, downtown New York City (after escape from the suburbs) to San Francisco (and perhaps back again). This is the course of the Beat language and lifestyle, and the song-poem follows closely as that movement goes off the road, as its figure becomes the degenerate “poet type” gawked at by passers-by seeking to be freaked out by the freaks. On this point it seemed to the PoemTalkers that Helen Adam was offering a deep formal critique of the formless (or, anyway, anti-formalist) Beat mode, as she attempted to cajole it — via Allen Ginsberg for instance — back to a properly irrational history of the dark ballad. Such carefully perfected irrationalism might have spared the junkie his particular negative directionlessness.

We happily felt the need to recommend Kristin Prevallet’s editorial work on Adam, especially in The Helen Adam Reader. Corina also described her own visit to the Adam manuscripts in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department of the State University of New York at Buffalo. Adam is one of those poets whose work is often difficult to behold only on the page, and that might be one of several reasons why she is not better known.

This ninety-third episode of PoemTalk was engineered by Zach Carduner and Ivana Kohut and was edited by the very same Zach Carduner.

Seeking love upon a day, A day of summer’s pride, I left Long Island’s suburbs For the Lower East Side. The train it roared and thundered, And I sang above its scream, There’s a cockroach coming towards me But it cannot spoil my dream. Love! Love! and l.s.d. It shall not spoil my dream.

Blue moonlight over Tompkins Square. “Drop out, tune in, turn on.” The village all around me, And Long Island’s suburbs gone. In a pad far down on Fourth Street Soon I welcomed the approach Of the rat that loves the twilight, And the nimble footed roach. Love! Love! at eventide, The grey rat and the roach.

I’m always where the action is. I blow my mind all day. While on Long Island’s tennis courts The bland suburbans play. And I was born suburban! Who would ever credit that? No chick who saw me frugging With the cockroach and the rat.

It’s Ho! for Horse, or methedrine To spark the swinging mood. While rats run up my trouser leg Roaches share my food.

Rats and roaches nuzzle me When it’s dark and hot. Love! Love! It’s all the same Mixing Speed and Pot. First a rat, and then a roach, Or both as like as not. If I can’t find a fix tonight My marrow bones will rot.

Goodbye transcendent Tompkins Square I haven’t long to stay. A double jolt of heroin and I’ll be on my way. Let rats and roaches bury me. They’ll bury me in state, As they march from Verrazano Bridge Down to the Golden Gate, Clear across the continent. Yonder let me lie, In the gutters of Haight Ashbury, To freak the passers by, Till all the tourists gape, and say, “Brother! He died high!” Let rat tails write my epitaph. Brother! He died high!

POEMTALK is a collaboration of the Kelly Writers House, PennSound, and the Poetry Foundation. PoemTalk’s producer and host is Al Filreis, our engineer is Zach Carduner, and our editor is the same talented Zach Carduner (whose predecessors were Amaris, Cuchanski, Allison Harris, and for most of the early episodes, Steve McLaughlin). PoemTalk is also available on iTunes. Click this link to subscribe; or go to your iTunes music store and type "PoemTalk" in the search box.

GATHERING PARADISE:At the end of each episode of PoemTalk, we gather paradise, commending one person or trend or happening in the poetry world. Here is a sampling of paradisal gathering across the episodes:[] Thinking about Williams's sense of the postindustrial way we live, Linh suggested we look at Mike Davis on "our living arrangements" (PT #1). [] Rachel celebrated the publication of the new bpNichol Reader, Alphabet Game (PT #3).[] Erica Kaufman commended David Trinidad's new book, The Late Show, in particular the poem "From the Life of Joe Brainard" (PT#5). [] Kenny Goldsmith happily pointed out a feature on UbuWeb in the March 2008 issue of Artforum (PT#6). [] Ron Silliman recommended a poetic sequence by Philip Whalen entitled The Children, based on photographs by Aram Saroyan (PT #8). [] C.A. Conrad recommends State of the Union: 50 Political Poems from Wave Books (PT #13). [] David Grazian, thinking of poetics-minded sociologists, wants us to read Loic Wacquant's Body & Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer (PT #18). [] Wystan Curnow wants us to look at jackbooks.com (PT #22). [] Frank Sherlock urges us all to read Joe Massey (PT #23).[] Natalie Gerber commends the Dodge Poetry Festival and its new-ish YouTube channel (PT #24).[] Joe Milutis suggests we all check out the work Danny Snelson has been doing (PT #25).[] We all praised Lorenzo Thomas's Don't Deny My Name: Words and Music and the Black Intellectual Tradition, esp. Aldon Nielsen who had the happy/unhappy task of editing it posthumously (PT #26).[] Jerome Rothenberg points us to two new anthologies: Mark Weiss’ The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetryand Cecilia Vicuna and Ernesto Livon-Grosman’s The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry (PT #27).[] Rachel Blau DuPlessis suggests Prismatic Publics: Innovative Canadian Women’s Poetry and Poetics, edited by Kate Eichhorn and Healther Milne, new from Coach House Books (PT #28).[] Linh Dinh recommends poet Mathias Svalina’s new book Destruction Myth(PT #29).[] Joey Yearous-Algozin lets us know about a new critical journal out of Buffalo called “Wild Orchids" (PT #31).[] Nada Gordon commends Brandon Brown’s three chapbooks: Tooth Fairy, The Orgy, and Your Mom’s a Falconress (PT #33).[] Bob Perelman encourages us to watch the recording of Laura Elrick’s March 2010 reading at the Kelly Writers House (PT #34).[] Sarah Dowling wants us to download Divya Victor’s book Sutures on Lulu (PT #35). [] Don Share is thrilled about Stanford’s new edition of Larry Eigner’s collected poems, four volumes of more than 3,000 poems reproduced in Courier font (PT #36). [] Julia Block is reading Philadelphia poet Kevin Varrone’s Passyunk Lost, out from Ugly Duckling Presse (PT #38).[] Tracie Morris recommends Sekou Sundiata’s jazz album The Blue Oneness of Dreams(PT #39). [] Jamie-Lee Josselyn reminds us about Joe Brainard’s PennSound author page; in particular, his “I remember” recordings (PT #40).[] Al Filreis suggests we check out Richard Sieburth’s new edition of New Selected Poems and Translations by Ezra Pound (PT #41).[] Fred Wah points us to the translation work that Italian-Canadian poet Louis Cabri is doing (PT #44).[] Charles Alexander is reading Amnesiacby poet Duriel E. Harris, out from Sheep Meadow Press (PT #45).[] Joan Retallack commends Caroline Bergvall on her new book Meddle English(PT #46).[] Jessica Lowenthal is enamored with Erica Baum’s project Dog Ear, some of which is available on Jacket2 (PT #47).[] Mike Hennessey tells us about CA Conrad’s video journal of contemporary poetry, Jupiter 88 (PT #50).[] Greg Djanikian would like us to watch the recording from Jane Hirschfeld’s visit to the Kelly Writers House (PT #52).[] Bob Perelman coins the term “high flarf” when recommending Ben Friedlander’s book Citizen Cain(PT #54).[] Katie Price suggests Craig Dworkin’s book Parse(PT #55).

From left to right, Jerome Rothenberg, Jeffrey Robinson, and Charles Bernstein discuss Robert Duncan for PoemTalk #27.